Counselling or Psychotherapy?
Please be aware that counsellors and psychotherapists won't give 'advice' or tell you what to do. Instead, the space of therapy offers a unique opportunity to reflect on what's going on in your life, discover your own ways of coping and what will work best for you and your current circumstances.
Psychotherapy and counselling are both 'talking therapies' and in practice they're very similar and often overlap.
Counselling is more often thought of in relation to time limited work. This means meeting for an agreed number of weekly counselling sessions (between 6-12). It tends to focus on immediate and specific concerns (e.g. reducing work-related anxiety levels) that are causing current difficulties. Counselling can help you gain more clarity about a particular issue, identify realistic options, express your feelings and gain a better understanding of what you want moving forward. The number of sessions you need depends on the type of problems you bring. Some people find a short sequence of sessions sufficient but others may need a longer time to explore their issues in more depth.
Psychotherapy is longer term work and usually open-ended as opposed to time limited and, again, sessions are arranged weekly.
In psychotherapy we explore your present and past experiences in far more depth and detail. Thinking about and reflecting on your childhood and life history brings greater self-awareness, clarity and self-understanding. It can bring insights into the childhood roots of current suffering, for example low self-esteem, excessive self criticism, difficulty trusting others, over-thinking, perfectionism etc. Understanding yourself and your life story more deeply, gives you an opportunity to recognise and change unhelpful, outdated patterns of thinking and behaving that are restricting your life and creativity now.
My training was as a psychotherapist so I tend to work more in depth, on an open-ended basis. However, I also offer focused, time-limited counselling.
What happens in the initial session?
It may seem daunting coming for psychotherapy or counselling for the first time and perhaps strange to talk about personal experiences to someone who is unknown to you. It is important to find the 'right' therapist for you as an individual, this means they need to be someone you feel comfortable with, able to trust and talk to freely. A good relationship is key to the effectiveness of counselling or psychotherapy.
In the first meeting our main task is to discuss and think about your concerns together and find out if the way I work is going to be helpful and meaningful to you; whether you feel at ease with me and we are able to engage with working together. We also talk about whether you are thinking of coming for short term counselling or more longer term psychotherapy. Often it doesn't become clear which is more appropriate until we have seen each other a few times. However, there's no obligation to continue after the first session if you decide not to.
I offer both short and long term work - the decision lies with you how long you wish to come for and what you want to focus on in our work together.
Weekly sessions
If you decide to continue with counselling or psychotherapy after the initial session then we arrange to meet weekly at the same regular time (either ongoing or for a fixed number of sessions). To gain the most benefit and best outcome for yourself from therapy, it's important to attend each week because this maintains continuity and focus between sessions. If you're unable to get to weekly sessions at present then it's probably best to wait and start therapy once you can.
Psychotherapy and counselling in Holborn, Central London
Psychotherapy & Counselling, Central London WC1
